Zora Neale Hurston--Sweat

To my mind, Zora Neale Hurston is the best of African-American fiction writers. I appreciate the work, such as it is, of Ralph Ellison, and some of Toni Morrison's offerings, but Zora continues to delight me each time I return to her work. Why? Perhaps it is because she writes of an African-American experience that includes discrimination and oppression, but doesn't become utterly possessed by those forces. She writes of humans.
In "Sweat," we have a marriage gone bad. After sixteen years of life together, Sykes and Delia can say, without fear of contradiction, that the good is gone. The problem is obvious: Delia works like a slave to put food on the table and a roof over their heads, while Sykes flits about and womanizes. Joe Clarke, who comes off looking a lot better here than in Hurston's masterpiece, Their Eyes Were Watching God, compares the relationship to people sucking on sugar cane:

There's plenty men dat takes a wife lak dey do a joint uh sugar-cane. It's round, juicy, an' sweet when dey gits it. But dey squeeze an' grind, squeeze an'
grind an' wring tell dey wring every drop uh pleasure dat's in 'em out. When dey's satisfied dat dey is wrung dry, dey treats 'em jes' lak dey do a cane-chew. Dey thows 'em away. Dey knows whut dey is doin' while dey is at it, an' hates theirselves fuh it but they keeps on hangin' after huh tell she's empty. Den dey hates huh fuh bein' a cane-chew an' in de way.

The Christian reader of this story has a good inventory of approaches to take. We might consider the imagery of the snake, the "harlot" Bertha, or the theme of forgiveness. Those all have potential, but I'd like to dwell for a moment on the Biblical metaphor of Christ and the Church being husband and wife. Compare the husband in Hurston's story with the husband in that Biblical metaphor. Where Sykes does not provide, Jesus provides. Where Sykes is unfaithful, Jesus is completely faithful. Where Sykes is full of hate, Jesus abounds in love. Sykes seeks to bring death to Delia; Jesus promises life--abundant life--to his bride.
Delia on the other hand, mirrors the church reasonably well. She is faithful but not perfect. She seeks to turn the other cheek, moving her church membership rather than take communion impurely with Sykes. She even attempts to accomodate the snake. How many women would allow a caged rattlesnake to remain in their house for weeks on end? As a woman of God, Delia knew what her husband ought to be, she knew the model held up for her. She could see plainly that Sykes did not come close to measuring up, yet she did not use his unfaithfulness as an excuse to turn away herself. Her only sin against Sykes, if we can call it that, is walking away in his dying moments. All things considered, this seems a justified response.